Navigating Partnered Sex: Women’s Experiences of Faking Orgasm and Exaggerating Pleasure – A Qualitative Study

Abstract Book of the 7th International Conference on Gender Studies and Sexuality

Year: 2026

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Navigating Partnered Sex: Women's Experiences of Faking Orgasm and Exaggerating Pleasure – A Qualitative Study

Mahsa Ghaffari Targhi, Dr. Olga Smolia; Dr. Robin Milhausen

ABSTRACT:

This qualitative study investigates how individuals who self-identify as women (e.g., cisgender, non-binary, trans) understand their sexual pleasure and their experiences of pretending or exaggerating pleasure or orgasm during partnered sex. It also explores the importance women attribute to relational and societal dynamics and how they understand these influences on their sexual experiences and responses. An anonymous, open-ended online survey was distributed through social media platforms using purposive sampling, and responses were collected from 51 participants residing in Canada and the United States. The data were analyzed using Braun and Clarke’s reflexive thematic analysis. Eight interconnected themes were developed, illuminating various dimensions of women’s experiences of pleasure and pretending. The study shows that participants understood their sexual pleasure and pretending as relational, situated, and shaped by social norms and gender-based dynamics of power in society. It contributes to the growing body of feminist scholarship on sexuality by centering women’s voices and disrupting simplistic binaries of “real” and “fake” sex. By exploring the affective, cultural, and communicative dimensions of pleasure and of pretending to experience pleasure, this research calls for broader, more nuanced definitions of pleasure and greater recognition of how women’s pleasure becomes a site of gender-based power and of women’s emotional and relational work.

Keywords: Sexual Pleasure, Orgasm, Partnered Sex, Thematic Analysis, Women’s Sexuality, Gender